Players:
Summary: Heather and Kisha dicuss time travel and time machines.
Date: July 9, 2010
Log Title: Time Machine
Rating: PG.
Xavier Mansion - Library
Like most Libraries, this one has that respected quite hush about it. A desk to check out books sits next to the door, next to the desk sits a statue of an Orangutan with a sign saying Return your books or else. Row upon row of books goes up and down the room. In the middle of all the shelves are two computers for looking up titles and a group of tables for students to sit and study. Along the back wall are windows with padded window seating for students to read in quiet.
One of those few things that don't really change very much between fast world and slow world are books, aside from increased risk of tearing the pages. Heather has come here in the afternoon in order to catch up on some of her reading. There are several books laid out on the table, some of them fiction novels, others textbooks in mathematics and another is a 'where's waldo' book. She has a book in front of her as she clasps her head between two hands, reaching down to change the page pretty frequently. Her slow world reading speed is already pretty good, her speedshift just makes it unusually so.
Wandering through the library, her touch screen computer held in one hand and a stack of books in the other, comes a Kisha. "Mind if I borrow some of the table?" she asks as the pile of books begins to sway. "Only I'm about to drop these /everywhere/ and it'll probably really hurt my feet." She scowls at the top book as if trying to hold it steady by force of will alone.
Heather gestures towards the table and states from her tape recorder, "There is plenty of table. Do whatever you want." She doesn't look back down to her own book, though, instead opting to stare for a few moments at Kisha before playing a second message, "Do you need help or something?"
Kisha drops the books onto the table with a thwump. From the titles on the spine it seems like the book collection is just about every course book that's on the syllabus for the Sophomore year (and possibly even the beginning of the Junior year too). "I'm just copying every book I'll need for the rest of the year," she explains, nodding at her computer screen. "I've fitted a scanner you see. Because then I don't need to deal with dead tree format /and/ I can cross reference everything which is related."
Blinking a few times rapidly, Heather plays, "You can scan them all onto something? Can you do that for me?" Heather isn't really terribly good with computers at the moment, just because she doesn't have much experience with them. She pushes her books aside and says, raising a brow slightly, "Who are you anyways?"
"Oh. Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Kisha and I'm new here," she explains with a shrug, before picking up the first book from the pile and opening it on page one. "I /could/ I suppose? But it wouldn't be very much good unless you had a computer for me to import the files onto. And I'd have to code conversion software to turn my scanned image into a pdf for your machine to read." She glances at the tape recorder and then tilts her head. "Haven't you heard of ebooks?"
"Eheh, what?" says Heather over the tape recorder. She clearly doesn't know what an ebook is. She hasn't been much introduced to computers, except for a few basic functions, mostly because most people can't stand to teach her new things. "I think I want a computer. I see people with them, and they look soo fancy. I am Heather Brown, codename: Timeslip."
Kisha hmmms. "I could help you pick one if you got the money?" she offers, smiling. "Or I could assemble one out of spare parts, but then the teachers would likely want to test it to make sure it's safe…" She sighs. "Timeslip? Nice codename, why'd you pick it? And what's the deal with the tape recorder?"
"I am pretty good at not getting hurt. If it's dangerous, I'm the perfect recipient," plays Heather on the machine. She smiles slightly and plays, "I chose it because I am slipped out of phase with normal time. I live in a faster world than yours, temporally speaking. The tape recorder is so you can hear me properly, and vice-versa. But apparently it becomes more appropriate in the future."
Kisha looks at the tape player and pouts. "That's… disgraceful. That you're still using something with a /tape/ I mean," she exclaims. "What if it tangles? You'd be left mute. As for getting hurt I'm not sure the teachers would see it that way, besides if I made it the thing could be filled with science equipment that secretly studies your time power…" She rubs at her forarms, each of which show signs of recent and rather heavy scarring. "Which is actually very very /very/ tempting only I'm not allowed to study anyone. Cruel world that this is."
"I got my recorder at the White Prison. And I only get the school allowance, and it's so hard to save it up for something better." Not that she's ever put in a request for a better item, since this one's never malfunctioned for her. "And maybe I'll come back in time sometime in the future and explain my power to you when I've studied it enough myself, so that you don't have to. It will be hard to remember, though."
"But explaining is no fun," Kisha points out with a sigh. "It's like offering to loan me a novel and telling me how it ends. Thoughtful, but I'd miss all the fun bits out. On the plus side your being here might prove time travel is possible! Which means in theory I could make a time machine." She twitches. "But anyway you might be best asking the teachers for a school laptop. Then if you need help I could give you some computer lessons over the summer." With great effort she resumes scanning pages from the book, fighting the urge to try design time machines with every drop of willpower she has.
"Well, time travel is certainly possible. I've confirmed that much. From the future," plays Heather, blinking her eyes rapidly. She shrugs and says, "As far as I understand, within the next ten years, I'm the only one who does it in our timeline with any consistency or reliability." She scratches her head lightly and shrugs, "But we might shift timelines. I'm sure I'll let myself know if we do."
Kisha lasts all of three pages before she picks up the stylus and opens a document which receives the title 'time machine'. "That you know of?" she asks. "After all if there are others like you out there they could all be doing… stuff." Slowly the design begins to take form. Or at least the edges do. It's a round-ish machine with what looks like rocket engine nozzles attached. Suddenly she stops and mutters something remarkably obscene in Russian. "This may take a while. According to the scale the design would need me to exceed the speed of light and would comfortably fit Manhattan inside."
"Planning a strategy with so many travel dimensionalities sounds awful complicated if other people have similar travel dimensionalities. I don't know for certain, though, I just hope that I am. It seems like a pretty big deal to our timeline that I did it," plays Heather, shrugging. "Wouldn't exceeding the speed of light require an imaginary amount of energy? I read about relativity before. It seemed relevant to me. Of course, if you have another dimensionality to work with, then you may be able to achieve a direction that's velocity squared is imaginary, so that the energy must be imaginary as well… but that's circular reasoning." She watches the device on the screen with some interest and shrugs.
Kisha glances at Heather, then grins. "Given how some of our classmates can imagine energy out of thin air I wouldn't expect that to be too much trouble," she points out cheerfully. "The bigger concern is assembling something of that size without a dozen superheroes coming to dismantle it, assuming it's some kind of evil base. Which to be fair would be a pretty valid assumption all things considered." The design itself is fairly simple even if the components themselves are not. After all it's simply a very big space ship with plenty of space and engines which defy every law of physics in the book. Easy!
Heather tilts her head at Kisha and starts brushing her fingers through her hair, which is mostly detangled at the moment, "Well, the speed has to be crosswise, that's all. I imagine each of our standard three dimensions have imaginary directions for each. But I don't know this. It makes sense, though, if you consider time travel through that lens." While Heather can't comprehend operating a computer, she seems comfortable enough discussing the possible avenues of approaching an extremely theoretical physics problem.
"It's a shame my power currently just gives me the most probable way to do something," Kisha laments, her design process slowing down as her enthusiasm drops. "Which is to work with laws of physics rather than bending them until they're too warped to matter. Oh well! I should probably get back to scanning books. A time machine would take me decades of work /and/ I'd need a space ship."
Heather nods at Kisha and says, "The most probably way to do something? That is very interesting. I might want to talk to you about it sometime." She tilts her head slightly and says, "Some situations require statistics. The roll of the dice. I do not like random elements, but they have to be considered." She shrugs and picks up her books, "I should go take a nap. Pleasant meeting."
Kisha blinks. "Cya later I guess," she offers, waving the stylus as a farewell. "I'll see about building you something better to replace the tape player. Can't hold up the march of progress!" And with that her attention flicks back to her work, mindnumbingly dull as scanning dozens of books happens to be.
